I am a designer and developer and content strategist. I use my experience as a magazine art director and web editor to help publishers, marketers, non-profits and self-branded individuals tell their stories in words and images. I follow all of the technologies that relate to the content business and try to identify the opportunities and pitfalls that these technologies pose. At the same time I am immersed in certain sectors through my content practice and am always looking to find connections between the worlds of neurology, economics, entertainment, travel and mobile technology. I live near the appropriately-scaled metropolis of Portland, Maine, and participate in its innovation economy (more stories at liveworkportland.org. A more complete bio and samples of my design work live at wingandko.com.

Some viral videos succeed because they are funny or shocking, but the best succeed because they expose viewers to a new idea that they want to share. In a trivial way, perhaps, that’s what happened in a big way with Gangnam Style. Who knew you could dance like a horse? In a more serious—but still wildly entertaining—way, a new video sponsored by The American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women program demonstrates a new idea about how to get active. “Follow Your Heart” (above) shows New York trainer Andia Winslow making her way from her apartment in Spanish Harlem to the subway station at 110 Street en route to Grand Central Station, as it turns out, to retrieve a lost smartphone (with a heart on the screen) from a mystical older woman dressed in red.

But the point is what she does with that time. Based on her tag line, “Get it in where you can fit it in,” (risqué pun intended, I think) Winslow looks at every aspect of her environment and every sliver of time within it as an opportunity to workout. A bench in the subway station, the overhead rails in the subway car, the moving floor of the train itself, all provide forms of resistance that she uses to tone her formidable body. There is no disclaimer in the video, but this is clearly not stuff to be attempted by an amateur on a crowded morning commute.

The point of the video, the secret sauce, is this idea about opening up your idea of where and how fitness can occur. Go Red for Women is specifically about increasing awareness among women, particularly in at-risk minority communities—about the risks and prevention of heart disease, but The Fit Cycle, as Winslow calls her project, is relevant to everyone. In terms of BJ Fogg’s model of behavior design, this video (and the earlier companion “Laundromat Workout,” below) increase our motivation by showing that finding time to workout is easier than we might think.

Winslow is also a pro golfer, hailing from Phoenix AZ and a 2014 Winter Olympic hopeful in Skeleton, a form of 80 mph Pilates on ice. Her level of fitness is astonishing, but most remarkable is her impeccable sense of form and alignment. Watching her move is a fun turn-on, because she is clearly both having fun and completely in control. She can handle the gaze of appreciative male onlookers on the train and she can handle our gaze as well. To say that these videos are aspirational, however, is a big understatement!

What makes Winslow’s subway workout adventure possible is all of her training and physical intelligence. For ordinary civilians to really make use of the tidbits of time and interstitial situations in their lives to increase their fitness, they need at least a baseline of training and body awareness that most, unfortunately do not have. As much as these videos are oriented primarily towards adult women, they make a persuasive case for more and better physical education for our children as a platform on top of which this “Fit Cycle” can be built.

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